Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics

Biography

Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard (Ph.D, University of Virginia) is Professor of Humanities and History and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University, where he is affiliated with Christ College, Valparaiso University’s humanities-based honors college. He also serves as a Senior Fellow for the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities. Prior to coming to Valparaiso, he taught at Gordon College, where he founded and directed the Jerusalem and Athens Forum honors program and led the Center for Faith and Inquiry. He is the author or editor of many books, including The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue (Yale University Press, 2021), The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age (Oxford University Press, 2017), Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism (Oxford University Press, 2016), and (edited with Mark A. Noll) Protestantism after 500 Years (Oxford University Press, 2016). His writings have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of the History of Ideas and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and in more general venues such as Hedgehog Review, Wall Street Journal, Modern Age, Touchstone, Inside Higher Ed, National Interest, Christian Century, First Things, and Commonweal. His work has been translated into German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese. A new book, Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History is recently out from Yale University Press. He is currently working on another entitled “Modern Christian Theology: An Intellectual History” (under contract with Princeton University Press) in addition to a collection of travel essays and an essay on the Christian conception of wisdom. He can be reached at tal.howard@valpo.edu

Research assistant:

duesenberg.ethics@valpo.edu

Publications

The Faiths of Others: Modern History and the Rise of Interreligious Dialogue
Yale University Press, 2020

The Idea of Tradition in the Late Modern World: An Ecumenical and Interreligious Conversation
Cascade, 2020
Editor with David Bentley Hart, David Novak, and Others

The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger and the Quandary of the Modern Age
Oxford University Press, March 2017

Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism
Oxford University Press, August 2016
Award of Commendation, Concordia Historical Society

Protestantism after 500 Years
Oxford University Press, August 2016
Edited with Mark A. Noll and 14 other Contributors

Imago Dei: Human Dignity in Ecumenical Perspective
Catholic University Press, June 2013
Editor, John Behr, Russell Hittinger, C. Ben Mitchell

God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the Religious Divide
Oxford University Press, 2011
Winner of the 2012 Christianity Today Book Award for History

The Future of Christian Learning: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue
Editor, Mark Noll and James Turner, Brazos, 2008

Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University
Oxford University Press, 2006
Winner of the Annual Book Award of the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts

Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness
Cambridge University Press, 2000